I make the simple statement, clearly, that:
Argentino plays video poker using sub-optimal strategy, but says he outperforms optimal strategy because of his remarkable system(s).
I have yet to have Argentino or Mr. Mendelson explain how the statement above is incorrect or inaccurate. By definition, not using the optimal holds is playing sub-optimally, so how can there be any question the statement as written is correct?
But here we get into further questions regarding what is or isn't absurd. Understand what is being laid out here regarding the whole system(s) theory.
Argentino and Mr. Mendelson explain that he uses optimal holds 95% to 98% of the time. So obviously Argentino accepts that the established, standard optimal holds are correct the vast majority of the time. Argentino has never claimed to have developed these holds, or mathematically established them by himself. He has used the traditionally accepted written strategies catalogued by others. So the vast majority of the time, he plays by standard optimal rules for holds and discards.
Argentino has allegedly established, in a manner not clearly or explicitly described, that occasionally using sub-optimal holds along with jumps in denomination allows one to sidestep negative expectation lifetime results on negative expectation games. Now there's the rub. There are just two ways to have established that these systems are superior to traditional optimal play.
First, one could establish this by trial and error. How many experimental hands and hours of video poker would have to be played to delineate that this or that tweaking of an optimal hold or discard, coupled with various denomination jumps, succeeds where others don't? One would have to play one helluva lot of video poker, meticulously keeping records and comparing this tweak to that and working through it. After all, nobody has, in the history of video poker, proved anything of the kind for just one sub-optimal hold. Surely thousands have tried. So experimenting like this and keeping meticulous records, comparing this tweak to that, switching and using various denomination jumps or sequences, that kind of experimentation could take years or lifetimes and many thousands of hours of video poker.
Or, one could establish that the various sub-optimal holds and denomination jumps were superior to the traditional optimal holds via a math discovery. Perhaps a new calculus of some kind allowed a shortcut from tedious experimentation. That kind of calculus, while proprietary, would make Argentino a celebrity in the math world if he shared it. Argentino has not mentioned such a thing, however, so that doesn't seem to be the way he established his system(s).
So how did Argentino come upon his system(s) if not experimentation or some kind of genius math breakthrough?
I have no idea. He certainly, in all of his thousands of posts on various forums, has not been clear on the process. Did it all come to him in a sudden burst of inspiration? And why has nobody else ever stumbled onto even one aspect of it? There are at least a couple hundred million trying.
If you step back and ask the simple questions, it begins to sound slightly absurd.
Reply With Quote
